George Smith Patton was born San Gabriel Township, California on November 11, 1885. As a boy, Patton read widely in the classics and military history. His father was a friend of John Singleton Mosby, the noted cavalry leader of the Confederate Army in the American Civil War who served first under J.E.B. Stuart and then as a guerrilla fighter. Patton grew up hearing Mosby's stories of his adventures, and longed to become a general himself. Patton came from a military family, his grandfather being a colonel in the Confederate army.